On most social media channels, an equation is used behind the scenes to determine the news feeds in which your content appears. The channel is trying to determine and predict what most people want to see, so it only serves up certain content. Basically, not all of your fans will see everything you post. The details of these equations are ever changing and not very well understood, but one component that remains constant is that the more interactions you have, the more penetration your posts will have. This is referred to as reach.
Once you are posting content, the intent is to hold the attention or gain the participation of your fans online. Specifically, you want your followers to like, comment on, click through, and share your content. This is referred to as engagement.
Together, reach and engagement are the best ways to measure the success of your social media efforts, and because each social media channel monitors this information to predict interest, most allow for easy tracking of these actions. Once you are tracking these things, you’ll be able to better understand what your fans are interested in seeing from your account and can tailor your content accordingly.
Here are a few tips to help increase your social media reach and engagement:
- Build your audience
- Ask all employees, partners, patients and prospects to follow your page
- Include links to your pages in email signatures and on marketing materials
- Have links to your pages on your website
- If possible, embed your news feed or content onto your webpage
- Ask all employees, partners, patients and prospects to follow your page
- Share interesting content
- Photos and videos are the most viral types of content online
- Local/unique stories that are relevant to you practice, which feature members of your team, or take place in your community should be shared regularly
- Craft posts that ask questions or require action
- Give your fans a reason to comment
- Respond to engagement by replying or liking comments
- Run contests
- While you cannot require that contest entrants like your page, you can encourage them to do so
- Suggest that entrants like your page to be among the first to find out the winner
- Facebook advertisements
- Sponsor posts with content that is engaging
- Make sure that your plan will reach the right audience
While everyone wants more fans and followers, this isn’t always as important as the power of the engagement you have with your current fans. By posting interesting content, tracking your successes and being responsive, you will grow your reach and engagement.
If you are looking for help generating content or putting a plan together, contact us today for more information on our comprehensive marketing solutions. All Sightpath Medical customers receive access to a full range of practice-building resources. From staff training and sample forms, to video tutorials and monthly webinars, we are here to help. Customers, click to access our Customer Resource library. Additionally, Sightpath Creative can help create interactions and energize a referral network to drive procedures, with ongoing practice development support on a variety of levels. Sightpath Creative would be glad to help assess, create and deploy messages for you all year long. Learn more about Sightpath Creative.